NEWS

STING TO STAR IN CANADIAN PREMIERE OF HIS CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED MUSICAL THE LAST SHIP

THE PRINCESS OF WALES THEATRE

FEBRUARY 9 – MARCH 24 2019

(Toronto – Tuesday July 17, 2018) - Sting will star in the Canadian premiere of his critically acclaimed musical The Last Ship. Presented by David Mirvish and produced by Karl Sydow and Kathryn Schenker, the limited six-week engagement runs February 9 through March 24, 2019 at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre.

This new production of The Last Ship, which has music and lyrics by Sting, has just finished a critically acclaimed 12-week UK & Ireland tour, which followed a sell-out run at Newcastle’s Northern Stage.

Sting will play the role of shipyard foreman Jackie White in Toronto. Further casting to be announced.

Sting said: “It was a joy to see the show’s journey from the rehearsal room to the stage this year - first in my hometown of Newcastle then around the UK and Ireland. It was also extremely moving to witness the incredible audience response in each city we visited. It will be hugely exciting and a personal privilege for me to perform in the show in Toronto and I’m looking forward to The Last Ship continuing its journey there next year.”

David Mirvish said: "The Last Ship is a personal, powerful story of a community attempting to come to grips with societal and economic changes that will tear apart the very fabric that kept that community together. What makes it especially powerful and very moving is its point of view. It is written from a very personal place by a son of that community — the acclaimed singer/songwriter Sting.

“How lucky and privileged are we in Toronto to actually have Sting star in his own show? These opportunities — the stuff of theatrical legends — come along very rarely. We are indeed blessed that Sting has chosen our community in which to tell his own very personal story."

Powerful article from BBC reflecting on The Last Ship's resonance with three former Clyde (Scotland) shipyard workers.

“The plot of Sting's new musical The Last Ship has strong echoes for three former Clyde shipyard workers… Jimmy Cloughley, Linda Hamill and Thomas Brotherston went with me to see the new stage production in which a shipyard faces closure and the workers decide to take control by finishing off the construction of a half-built ship… This is what they experienced in 1971 when they were among thousands of workers at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) who staged a work-in…”